Posts by James Hughes 1 2645 publicly visible posts • joined 12 Jun 2009
Hmm, let me think.
Do I believe SpaceX, the rather clever people behind the satellites and the ones coughing up the rather considerable costs to launch them, or some Register commentators.
Touch choice.
On the other hand, perhaps it's just a little bit more than 'testing the antennas'?
I eventually got some money out of the surveyor who did my house, and failed to notice that the oil storage tank leaked like a sieve - i.e. you could actually see the drops coming out. How the previous owners hadn't noticed it is weird. Well, not really.
I did threaten them with all sorts though as they kept denying any responsibility.
All rocket stuff is designed to work right first time, and it's generally successful. For example the Delta4 rocket has had only one partial failure ever.
Of course SpaceX do a lot of up front stuff, just not as much as ULA or Boeing. They are faster and more agile. Which I believe is a faster way to get stuff working than huge amounts of paperwork and simulations.
Chip cost is a big reason, I think, why these companies get together. The cost of making a modern SoC from scratch is MASSIVE. Many $10 of Millions if you want anything other than ARM standard designs (and they are not cheap)
And more to the point, I sold all my Brcm shares last week, just before they went up 20%, so a bit pissed. off.
When I was racing you often had to change gear in long corners to keep in the best power band (Corum at Snet rings a bell, as does the corner at the end of the start straight at Lydden Hill). Usually changing up of course. Changing down you need to heel and toe and know what you are doing, can result in spins otherwise.
Look up trail braking for braking in to corners.
Glad you used the troll icon.
Planes are incredible safe, even when entirely controlled by computers. Not a valid argument.
Google beta point. WTF? You really really think that legislation will let 'bad/untested/beta' driverless cars on the road? These things are going to be tested to the nth.
Humans are terrible drivers on the whole. Driving when tired, when distracted by children, when really bad drivers who should never even be allowed in a car. May not be there yet, but computers are guaranteed to eventually be better than human drivers. And I suspect that time is not that far off.
These cars have a lot of high resolution camera. The data storage for just single 1hr trip will be really quite large (let's say 4x1080p30 cameras, that's multiple GB per hour). Now multiply that by every car, and the numbers of hours driven.
Not enough storage in the world for that lot.
£75 http://shop.pimoroni.com/products/raspberry-pi-2-starter-kit
£50 http://thepihut.com/collections/raspberry-pi-kits-and-bundles/products/raspberry-pi-2-starter-kit
£69 http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/raspberry-pi-board-and-starter-kit-r45pi
£43.99 http://www.modmypi.com/raspberry-pi/set-up-kits/rpi2-model-b-kits/starter-kit-including-new-raspberry-pi-2-model-b
Does make you wonder where all the extra money is going, especially since the Foundation does all the Raspbian dev work, spends a lot of money on education, and supports things like SonicPi, Scratch, Minecraft Pi and Mathmatica, and won't see a penny of this £15M (except the usual cut of the Pi2 sales)
Samsung do actually have very very strict quality control and testing for their cameras (I know, I've been on the receiving end of it), down to nitpicking about individual pixel differences between two cameras or ISP's
So its surprising that there is any real noticeable different between these sensors. I wonder if they are relaxing the rules a bit.
They also dual or more source components, and are on a constant search for cost reduction.
Which all in all makes them a PITA to work for.
@Neil Barnes
People like that do exist, I'm one, but we are all getting on a bit now. But I do occasionally come across someone younger who really knows their stuff. But they tend to gravitate to the high paying, interesting jobs, and although software for deep drilling sounds quite interesting to me, does it compare with high frequency trading, advanced camera work and image analysis, video processing etc?
Did I say it was impossible? No, didn't, I said it was difficult. Not perhaps technically difficult, but overall, difficult.
Now go and install everything required for a HD capable satellite link on an unmanned barge. For the cost of simply bringing the SD cards back as the barge is towed in. Also, make the system literally bomb proof, because there is a big flamy thing going to be landing on or near it.
Rolls eyes.
Even at lowest thrust the single running Merlin engine has a T/W ratio > 1 over the empty stage, so it needs to 'hoverslam', i.e. high G deceleration at last second reaching 0m/s at deck height.
Ther ewas a sticky valve somewhere that cause delays in the control system, which they think causes the wiggling.
Christ on a bike, there are some dumb AC's out there.
Do you honestly believe that SpaceX would be spending the amount of money they are on getting this to work if they didn't have some really good reasons for doing so? Like actually working out what it was going to save?
Musk is not stupid man. You clearly are. Or woman.
If I want something delivered, I want it delivered to my door, not somewhere I need to get in the car and fetch it from.
I can see this working quite well in busy cities, not so good in the countryside. Certainly cheaper, faster and less polluting than a delivery truck. Maybe not so good when it's like today - a bit windy.
Given the number of people driving around today in the fog with either just sidelights or no lights at all, I tend to agree. And that for the honk I got from some a guy driving at about 80 on a 60 road, in the fog. Note to you, if I cannot see you in the fog, and you are driving that fast, what do you expect will happen when I need to overtake a cyclist?
@truth4u, it's a world view that needs changing - shame m0rt hasn't managed to do it with his pretty accurate post above. I guess you will have to come out of the basement and take a look at the real world.
I'm a school governor who took the post specifically to see how this stuff is working out and to help it on it's way. I'm also involved in all the other areas of curriculum as well, and have great interaction with the teachers. They do a great job given the constant changing of curriculum by the government.
Pay was average, hours were completely mental.
Even as a race car person, it was a bit much. Not for the faint of heart, or people with families, or people with hobbies, or people who basically want a life outside of work.
I know a couple of people who work in F1, one enjoys it, the other not so much...
"Linus shows a lack of maturity"
Well, almost every developer I've ever met (including me) shows a lack of maturity in one way or another.
"Linux on desktop"
Is that really what he wants to see, or does he just not care a jot, given the OS is used on the top 10 supercomputers, in every android phone, in huge numbers of household devices?
"Project manager"
I'd have to say that as a project manager he has done quite well. Most project managers I have worked with would not have got Linux to the place it is now. Since there is no other open OS project that has got anywhere near close to Linux, it would appear that is quite the success.
You could indeed argue that not enough market research was done, or that the initial batch wasn't large enough.
But you could also argue that a few people running a charity simply don't have the time or funds to run market research, or indeed, have a big enough house to remortgage to pay for the initial 10k batch....
Whilst hindsight is 50:50, you also have to take in to account constraints encountered at the time.
It's a wafer scale package in the power circuitry. Wafer scale means no package, just the silicon die rwith a BGA underneath, soldered direct to the PCB.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wafer-level_packaging
Not yet sure what the permanent fix will be. But blutac is clearly the current option for people who encounter the issue.
Usual bunch of townie bastards who have enough money to actually live in towns, complaining that the people who grow them their food are sponging of their taxes.
I suggest that instead of living in your nice city you actually visit the countryside, not as a tourist, that's pointless, but to actually see what it's like, before commenting.
I wonder how many would be interested to know the following fact.
Much of farmable countryside is being bought up by pension companies, for above usual selling prices, forcing owners/farmers out or pricing land too high for them to buy enough land to survive. Then they get the land farmed by cheap immigrant labour, putting a lot of locals on the dole.
For YOUR pension. So a lot of people in the Countryside are directly contributing to YOUR fucking pension.
We want some of that money back please. Broadband would be good, as would roads that are not so bad they break car springs (same roads that bring your food to the city)
Bugger, and I'm not even a farmer...
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